Me too, and it feels like when, before a session, you check the weather it says 17% chance of rain it doesn't seem to mean theres a 17% chance, its seems to mean it will rain for 17% of that session. I'm probably way off with that one but i haven't had one weekend in career without rain (Bahrain included!!).

1st impressions = The handling is brilliant. This is the most alive and sensitive car physics they have produced so far.

I've read lots of people going on about understeer being a BUG. WTF! The car is obviously going to go straight on if you are locking up into a corner, or going too quickly into a corner. But it takes about a lap to realise that they've made this aspect much more difficult and realistic in 2012 and you start to drive accordingly. I.e. Properly. Same with the Engine blow up BUG. What bug?! Now you have to drive properly and get on the brakes before you start downshifting. Not rocket science. It just goes to show what relaxed habits some of us fell into with the old, easier/simpler versions. Also, despite the handling physics being inherently more understeery now, I'm actually getting more controlable oversteer too. I think it really shows that the programmers have been polishing the diamond since they started in 2010.

Not too impressed with the tyre modelling or some of the menu graphics or the lack of practice. I had an engine blow up in Melbourne practice, my first ever event in career, so basically had to go into qualifying with about 5 laps under my belt. And, what is going to happen if the only practice session is wet but the race is dry or vice versa? Oh and the young driver thingy is utterly stupid. Its more like the sort of license modes you expect to find on Gran Turismo or something, it bears no resemblance to a test.

But anyway, main thing for me is that racing is good and tyres notwithstanding, it appears to be quality so far.

I've certainly concluded that most Bugs reported on the internet are actually people frustrated because the game is not easy enough for them.

I've read lots of people going on about understeer being a BUG. WTF! The car is obviously going to go straight on if you are locking up into a corner, or going too quickly into a corner. But it takes about a lap to realise that they've made this aspect much more difficult and realistic in 2012 and you start to drive accordingly. I.e. Properly. Same with the Engine blow up BUG. What bug?! Now you have to drive properly and get on the brakes before you start downshifting. Not rocket science. It just goes to show what relaxed habits some of us fell into with the old, easier/simpler versions. Also, despite the handling physics being inherently more understeery now, I'm actually getting more controlable oversteer too. I think it really shows that the programmers have been polishing the diamond since they started in 2010.

Not too impressed with the tyre modelling or some of the menu graphics or the lack of practice. I had an engine blow up in Melbourne practice, my first ever event in career, so basically had to go into qualifying with about 5 laps under my belt. And, what is going to happen if the only practice session is wet but the race is dry or vice versa? Oh and the young driver thingy is utterly stupid. Its more like the sort of license modes you expect to find on Gran Turismo or something, it bears no resemblance to a test.

But anyway, main thing for me is that racing is good and tyres notwithstanding, it appears to be quality so far.

I've certainly concluded that most Bugs reported on the internet are actually people frustrated because the game is not easy enough for them.

You´re 100% right mate, there´s people complaining for dumb stuff. And this comes from a guy that bashed to death 2011. When they do a good job, one can only applaud.

Now it´s only needed less noob-friendly grass and curbs, extreme dumb setups not working at all, and we have a really good game... I can see the people complaining about "sudden loss of grip when you go to grass bug" if this happens though

How doe the top teams' AI measure up in the game?
I know I sound like a fanboy, but it would be a deal breaker if I am in a Ferrari and my teammate is languishing in the midfield because CM used the cars' pace at the start of the year.

I started a career with Toro Rosso on Professional settings and progressed through to Monaco, but arrived at the realisation I wasn't having any fun playing the game. The setups I was using from Race Department seemed totally ineffective and I felt entirely uncompetitive against the AI cars - qualifying on average around 22/23 then falling away during the race by literally seconds a lap.

As a test, I restarted my career on the next difficulty level down and lo and behold, same setups, same driving style and I'm setting dominant pole positions and winning races at a canter - in a Toro Rosso.

It's disparity like this that puts me off, as in my view both scenarios leave very little fun!

Try adding adding a touch of wing, brake bias and lower ride height at the front.

And don't use a G27 wheel like me It's going to kick off with the community pretty soon as people are cottoning onto the fact that the DFGT is genuinely faster than the G27, to the tune of around half a second. The physics are literally different with the DFGT wheel, the understeer doesn't kick in in the same way when you go off line and you can mash the pedals in comparison, absolutely floor the throttle coming out of a slow corner :/

I believe so, the double feedback motors in the g25/g27 might be part of the problem, I suspected the DFGT was the faster wheel in last year's game as well but now it seems pretty much proven that it is quicker in F1 2012. However, don't let this put you off buying the game, it's still great fun IMO. Just if you race semi-competitively just know that you're at a disadvantage with the G25.

I believe so, the double feedback motors in the g25/g27 might be part of the problem, I suspected the DFGT was the faster wheel in last year's game as well but now it seems pretty much proven that it is quicker in F1 2012. However, don't let this put you off buying the game, it's still great fun IMO. Just if you race semi-competitively just know that you're at a disadvantage with the G25.

I'm a DFGT user and still can't get anywhere near you mate! I was as quick as James Calado though

Got it and have played around for an hour or so. Very much improved in some areas (I have '10, skipped '11) but career is a huge WTF so far. Force India..........practice made three laps.....blew engine......ok......went to qually......made one timed lap......blew up AGAIN!!! Come on guys, get it together here.

Got it and have played around for an hour or so. Very much improved in some areas (I have '10, skipped '11) but career is a huge WTF so far. Force India..........practice made three laps.....blew engine......ok......went to qually......made one timed lap......blew up AGAIN!!! Come on guys, get it together here.

I saw reports of the engine blowing easily when the game came out and i was a little concerned but i've got as far as Singapore in my career and haven't had one failure, i try not to be aggressive with downshifting etc but i wouldn't say i was being overly cautious. Maybe it depends on the platform? I'm on the PC.

PS3 here. Ok seems to be a bug in the 'random' failure setup. Restarted career with TR this time. Practice and qualifying ok and I purposefully banged gears on downshifts WAY too hard. All good. Restarted AGAIN with FI and had immediately the same two failures......
Just going to play around for a bit before I start a career so hopefully ill get a different 'schedule' of failures lol

Bit of a problem... after updating to the 1.02 patch, my DFGT now seems to be set at a much higher degrees of rotation within the game, probably around 480 where previously it was at 240 (or whatever the game set as proper lock to lock for an F1 car). I know have to make over a full turn of the wheel left or right to make the slightest turn within the game... anyone having similar issues?

I fancied a go today, but after that I went straight back to WRC3...

UPDATE: have seen the sticky regarding this on the Codies Forums, so hopefully it'll be sorted next time I play the game.

Bit of a problem... after updating to the 1.02 patch, my DFGT now seems to be set at a much higher degrees of rotation within the game, probably around 480 where previously it was at 240 (or whatever the game set as proper lock to lock for an F1 car). I know have to make over a full turn of the wheel left or right to make the slightest turn within the game... anyone having similar issues?

I fancied a go today, but after that I went straight back to WRC3...

UPDATE: have seen the sticky regarding this on the Codies Forums, so hopefully it'll be sorted next time I play the game.

Yeah, with the G27 i run 75% steering saturation and it feels almost the same as before in terms of the actual steering ratio. Don't be afraid to crank up the saturation, and if the car is wobbling on the straights, just crank up the linearity to counter that. My settings are 75% saturation, 25% linearity.

You have to crank the saturation right up for it to be useable on the DFGT. And as for the deadzone, none and it's skittering left and right all the way down the straight and 2% means you have to pull the wheel round quite a way just to get any steering.

It's a terrible game unless you can get the wheel settings at least partly game. These days my main gripe is the shoddy graphics and shocking frame rate on PS3.

A fully wet session, not terrible hard rain but still, I need inters. All opponents are on the option tyre - way faster then me. When I try option, I have no grip at all.

Borrowed the game from our kid and this happened to me in qualifying in Malaysia. They were 10 seconds a lap quicker on options and I'm on the infers. I try options and can't even keep it straight? Bizarre.

Apart from that it seems ok. Still think it should be better in terms of graphics etc, but I'll keep playing it untilHe wants it back.

A fully wet session, not terrible hard rain but still, I need inters. All opponents are on the option tyre - way faster then me. When I try option, I have no grip at all.

I played the full version of the game for the first time yesterday and found a similar thing in my first event. I did a quick race at Monza and in a wet qualifying session the leaders were doing mid 1.23's (quicker than Hamilton's pole time this year) while I was dead last. Then during the (dry) race I was quicker than everyone else and the leaders were unable to go quicker than 1.27. I know race pace is slower because of extra fuel but it was ridiculous considering it was only a five lap race.

Despite the above it generally seems a lot better than the demo though and a damn sight better than last year's effort.

Does anyone here play the game on the Xbox and find the setups... well, impossible?

Two things I just don't understand. 1. In all my years at playing GP2, gp3, gp4, rFactor, I always understood that with ground effect, the front needs to be about 22 cm's lower than the rear. But I never see setups on the internet (or if you let the engineer in the game advise you a setup) that uses this difference. 2. The anti-rollbar (ARB) front and rear. Again, in the past, you used to put the front ARB heavier than the rear. Doug Arnao and Eric Coté (the old hands here will recognise their names) used to put ten times much in front as on the rear. So for example: 3000 front, 300 rear. However, on all the setups I've seen on the internet in F1 2012, the ARB's front and rear are the same.

Does anyone here play the game on the Xbox and find the setups... well, impossible?

Two things I just don't understand. 1. In all my years at playing GP2, gp3, gp4, rFactor, I always understood that with ground effect, the front needs to be about 22 cm's lower than the rear. But I never see setups on the internet (or if you let the engineer in the game advise you a setup) that uses this difference. 2. The anti-rollbar (ARB) front and rear. Again, in the past, you used to put the front ARB heavier than the rear. Doug Arnao and Eric Coté (the old hands here will recognise their names) used to put ten times much in front as on the rear. So for example: 3000 front, 300 rear. However, on all the setups I've seen on the internet in F1 2012, the ARB's front and rear are the same.

That's weird, right? Or is there something I do not understand?

The fact is.. it's not realistic.

Even without assists on it seems to me that the best way to get a decent start on F1 2012 is to floor it. That's not the case in any of the other games you mentioned, and sums it up.

registration of the trophy information could not be completed. The game will quit. (8002291A)

When I load F12012. I'm not even bothered about bloody trophies. I've searched around. But none seem as its a problem on F12012. I was wondering if anybody knew what it was and how I can fix it. Cheers.

Best way for starts i've found is have it 3/4s full throttle at the getaway and then floor it after a second or so.

Setup is virtually pointless as this guy explains:

Nowhere near realistic but i don't mind cos it means driver skill has quite a part to play, almost all of it.

Thanks for that link. I find the lack of a real setup menu in F1 2012 a real letdown, and I almost am turned of the game completely. I just can't bother working on setups if I can't see real progress. While in Gp4, which I play now on my Mac(!), you can set bump settings and 'feel' immediately a difference.

Best way for starts i've found is have it 3/4s full throttle at the getaway and then floor it after a second or so.

Setup is virtually pointless as this guy explains:

Nowhere near realistic but i don't mind cos it means driver skill has quite a part to play, almost all of it.

Yep, that´s it. It´s all bugged. There´s 1 fast side, and one slow side on the bar. The more you exploit the system, the faster you´ll go. That´s for TT and dry weather at least. He missed 1 cheat: 11 FW and 1 RW doesn´t cause oversteer on this game, it just makes you faster, the same than antiroll 1-11

In long races it´s not quite that extreme, but still extreme values handicaps (like high tyre wear for stiff antirolls and springs, or high negative cambers) are not represented enough, and extra speed usually pays off. With the rain, you just need the opposite values, he´s wrong that high wings don´t give extra grip, they do, and pay off in the wet, just like softer springs and higher ride height.

So basically, in a dry race, the more of a soul less cheater you are, the faster you´ll go. If you´re a fan of the sport and you feel stupid setting lowest wings avalaible on the Hungaroring, or you feel bad setting the stiffest springs that you know should destroy your tyres, you´ll lose time. It´s shit. If you want to have fair races, agree with your friends on the setups you´ll use. Otherwise there´s not even remotely an even playfield. So open lobbies are pointless too: you can be virtually on the same skill level that another guy and gain/lose a second depending on who exploits the broken system more.

Yeah, should have added to my last sentence, i race in a few leagues and we all more or less have the same or similar setups, but then assists are allowed and i don't play with them, so i'm always a touch slower than the top guys.

However, setups is one of the many things they didn't fix at all with this game. I really hope they work on it in the next game or i probably won't bother with it. I probably won't anyway because the penalty system is the stupidest thing in the world.

Yeah, should have added to my last sentence, i race in a few leagues and we all more or less have the same or similar setups, but then assists are allowed and i don't play with them, so i'm always a touch slower than the top guys.

They said something about weight penalty for assist users. I don´t think it even exists.

I recomend you to tell your friends to stick to preset setups only, the ones that RE has ready. When it´s dry, everyone will be on the last one, and you´ll get an even playing field. If it´s wet, people will go for slightly different stuff and you´ll get some strategy and gambling going on. It´s quite nice, it gives really good races.

However, setups is one of the many things they didn't fix at all with this game. I really hope they work on it in the next game or i probably won't bother with it. I probably won't anyway because the penalty system is the stupidest thing in the world.

Yeah, it´s terrible. I´d really like a proper setup mode, but at least they could have added an option to lock people to presets if they were not going to fix it.

Developers are aware of the problem. Last year they raced some other people and made an agreement to use similar setups to get a proper race. They KNOW it´s broken.

Weight penalty? Doesn't look like it exists. We do sometimes because, since the last xbox patch, some friends have been having connections issues so using presets in one shot qualy then the races seems the best way to get people to keep connection.

Kinda wish they would take a year out to sort the problems and really fix them but that's never going to happen. All they seem to do is 'sleight of hand'. Add something there, eg. champions mode, to distract you from something they didn't do eg. fix setups.

Have to admit after the earlier versions of this franchise this is a huge improvement, you really can play it pretty well on a PC and a decent wheel setup.

My main issue is the horrendous lack of QA testing in the game. There are lso many errors here that it really beggars belief that Codemasters can charge people for this, and they have already said that they are not pacthing any more, despite all the bugs, which I understand due to thei qhip crack deadline of every game every year, but for Lords sake, Beta teating a game over a number of years but releasing it as a full copy is hard to stomach for such a well respected firm.

Numerous examples, cars running in wet at Canada, in a wet race passing me so obviously on DRS though it has been declared non DRS due to rain, cars going faster on slicks in wet than I can in dry! Stupid, inane radio comments from cars nothing to do with you in a race, lack of mouse control in menus, lack of region choice in servers meaning lag and warping are common.

And worst of all the staggeringly poor difficulty settings, I was winning most races on Intermediate in an HRT, then moved to another lower tier team, upped the level to Pro and instantly cant qualify anywhere near anyone above me, any tier 2 car is 2 or 3 seconds a lap quicker, pathetic QA yesting and obviously not at all tested before release or sijply ignored.

Then in races, AI are so weak on the brakes, a dog of a car drive with no errors can score points just by outbraking people, yet winner is three quarters of a lap in front!! Stupid really.

But, on the whole, the online mode is fun, decent evel from a few, not many rammers in proper online races and some good fun races had, just stay away from the rubbish career mode, as it is utterly flawed

I really like F1 2012 and think its the best version so far. Love the fact its easier to lose control of the car as it feels a lot more twitchy. The graphics and renders look more realistic after 2011 got it slightly wrong in that department. Haven't ventured online with this one as racing games tend to be annoying when dipshits punt you off when you overtake them. I'm sure they've solved this but it put me off so much last time I haven't bothered trying it out.

If you want to race online your best bet is to head over to RaceDepartment and sign up to a league, racing against real people instead of AI is a whole different ball game, you'll be surprised how high your heart rate gets and how sweaty your palms get! Racing online against just random folks always ends badly.

One issue I'm finding though is in a qually session or race that starts raining, I'm finding it difficult to decide (a) when to come in and (b) if I should stick inters or wets on. Once I'm up to speed (seems to take a couple of laps for the inters or the wets to start working - maybe they've modelled in this simulation) I'm fine for pace, provided I'm on the right tyre. A lot of people have said they're nowhere on a wet track, but I find that on fast corners where the downforce is working, you can go pretty much 90% of dry pace, and on slower corners the main thing is to brake very softly and stay in high gears so as to cut out wheelspin.

But anyway, my point, has anyone spotted a way of working out what tyre will be the right one? Is there a clue in the colour of the clouds or anything I haven't spotted that can help me get it right more often than not. The only solution I've found so far is to wait until AI cars pit and then go to the race director to see what they're on... but then I'm pitting a lap late. Any help appreciated.

D: I am so bad at this game even on easy.... probably cause the only racing games I ever had was Need For Speed II, IV and the two Undergrounds....

Maybe my problem is just Australia... but first I dont understand setup yet, then the other problem is, that I in Australia didn't get in quali over 24th.... my problem is probably that I control too much always tiny pushes on the analog stick to stabilize my car on the line....

in Malaysia I did better got 7th with Marussia 17th in qualifying.... I like to play easy cause I dont like games that are too challenging yet I want to get better... just don't know what I have to do to get australia right... maybe my car just breaks too strongly or something I dont know.... my best time never went under the 1.40 with marussia and never under 1.37 when I was still force india, but even that I couldnt replicate

Maybe I also use KERS wrong in the Force India at least... that was also the reason I restarted with Marussia

if you are finishing 7th with a Marussia I think you are doing well!?
if you problem is the track, try doing some more practice before going to the race...
also if you feel there is something strange about how the car drives, try changing some of the assists?

I haven't played much with the game on easy, but it was quite forgiving and I don't think you really need to use KERS and DRS for that, focus on staying on the racing line, braking...

if you are finishing 7th with a Marussia I think you are doing well!?if you problem is the track, try doing some more practice before going to the race...also if you feel there is something strange about how the car drives, try changing some of the assists?

I haven't played much with the game on easy, but it was quite forgiving and I don't think you really need to use KERS and DRS for that, focus on staying on the racing line, braking...

well I trained australia for 4+ hours... and yeah... I got the feeling the braking assist breaks to hard I hardly get my car around the corner... but yeah I guess I will keep training... keeping on the line might indeed be a problem... first played with keyboard was terrible now using controller it is going a bit better but I still need to push the stick often times very slightly to stay on the line

Sorry for double post but is there a mod that makes easy difficulty easier? like the opponent 1-3 seconds slower...

Reason for that is yeah I'm not the best player.... but I just want to have fun... thats why I play easy, when I choose easy I want easy... meaning that I'm able to get top 10 in all races no matter what car (then again both marussia and force india cars had the same results being played by me)...

I am not the kind of gamer who plays for challenge I just want fun and I have fun imagining playing a driver who does awesome I play for fun... for sure I also understand if people play for challenge... but if there already are difficulties I want my Easy to be REALLY easy... and when I get better and wanna play for challenge and realism I can still choose a higher difficulty..

I mean I did fine in Malaysia, Shanghai and Bahrain in Marussia with 7th, 4th and 5th position but from then on I wasn't even able to get higher than 15 or 19 in quali.... and in the races it is even worse, there I usually end up 24th